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A view at Auvers-sur-Oise, a small town just north of Paris. Van Gogh spent the last few months of his life there, from mid-May 1890, when he left an asylum, to his death on 29 July. At the beginning of June, Van Gogh wrote to his sister: 'there are some roofs of mossy thatch here which are superb and of which I shall certainly make something'. This picture, which is unfinished, was probably begun soon afterwards. Painted direct from the motif, it shows how Van Gogh transformed what he saw into something entirely personal, using a vigorous brushwork and curving outlines to express an unsettling vitality and energy.

Writing to his sister W.J. van Gogh at the beginning of June 1890, soon after his arrival at Auvers (W21), van Gogh remarked: 'There are some roofs of mossy thatch here which are superb and of which I shall certainly make something'. The present work is probably one of the earliest paintings of this theme executed at Auvers and can be compared with F.750, the first picture painted after his arrival. It appears to be unfinished. Van Gogh had also made a number of paintings and drawings of thatched roofs during his Dutch period, including [N04715].

The Paul Cassirer records show that Frank Stoop bought this picture on 5 January 1910 for DM8000.

Published in:Ronald Alley, Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, pp.294-5, reproduced p.294